Taken in Haste
by Cmdr. Phantom
Summary: Robin isn't really thinking straight after the Season 2 final, and goes in search of Gisborne.


**Title:** Taken in Haste  
**Rating:** PG for a bit of violence  
**Pairing:** Mention of Robin/Marian  
**Spoilers:** All of Season 2, but mostly the final  
**Warnings:** VERY IMPORTANT! There IS, most definitely, CHARACTER DEATH in this fanfic! PLEASE do not comment and tell me how I can't do stuff like that. It's DONE! Live with it, or don't read! Thank you for your time.  
**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything.  
**A/n:** I wrote this eons ago, to vent after the final, but it took me a while to get the guts to actually post it. It's my first Robin Hood fic, so please be kind!!

--

He moved silently.

He was alone. Had been so alone, ever since that moment. And while he knew his gang... his friends... were there for him, this he knew he had to do alone. Because he knew they would try to stop him

His feet travelled the familiar path. Although now the familiarity was in the darkness, when once he'd traversed these roads openly and with impunity. That has all changed now. Forever.

He came across Locksley hall, his former home rising out of the darkness, suddenly a stranger. Most of his life his view of his home as always had her in it... and now without even a whispered chance that she might walk the halls beside him showed him the hall for what it really was.

Old. Derelict. And belonging to another man.

Robin caught his breath, the grip on his sword tightening as the thought clutched at his heart. Guy of Gisborne legally owned Locksley hall. Had taken his home. His people. His land...Had taken his wife. A surge of anger flooded Robin's senses, his sense of revenge so tangible he could taste it rising in his throat. He couldn't even feel the grief that threatened to overwhelmed him, doggedly pursuing the one emotion he truly felt he understood.

Robin reached his former home. Gisborne was no fool, but word of his betrayal had not yet reached England, so he had nothing to fear from the commoners yet, and Robin had no doubt the other man had been keeping close watch for his return. Which is why he'd been in complete concealment since leaving the Holy Land. Even his own men didn't know where he was.

Gisborne had doubled the guards anyway. Robin slipped by them easily, unnoticed, soft and silent. He moved noiselessly down the corridors once walked by his ancestors, not allowing a single thought, focused only on the image of Marian, Guy's sword protruding from her stomach, her eyes full of pain and sadness and longing and love. Love for him that they could never share. Their last moment together was imprinted in his memory. It was all he could see.

Robin paused out the front of his old sleeping chambers - of Gisborne's sleeping chambers – and peered through the crack of the door left ajar. It did not afford Robin a view of the bed... instead it showed the writing desk against the far wall that had been there since before Robin could remember. And seated at it, his back to the door, was Gisborne. A single candle flickered beside him, throwing moving shadows across the room.

Robin took a step, trying hard to control his breathing lest it give him away, slipping quietly through the gap in the doorway, hardly disturbing the air. There, bare feet from him, sat the man responsible for the murder of his beloved Marian.

Her eyes flashed before him again. Those eyes of hers, so trusting, even after he'd failed to protect her. Robin could not suffer those eyes haunting him for the rest of his days. He'd only ever wanted her to be safe.

Sucking in a deep breath, Robin converged on the room, and to his credit, Gisborne acted on the first hint of sound, pushing himself from his chair and away from his assailant in one swift movement.

The chair, perhaps by Gisborne's design, perhaps by chance, fell into Robin's path. The former occupant of the home barely let it break his stride, leaping over it nimbly, landing only a foot from Gisborne, who, while quick on his feet, just wasn't quick enough to reach his weapon. Another stride and Robin was in front of the other, pinning Gisborne against the wall with the blade of his sword.

And so they stood. Gisborne, breathing heavily, indignation and anger edging his eyes at being attacked in his own home, and Robin, calm and collected and eyes hard and focused. Even bare inches from him, Gisborne could not being to imagine the sea of emotion currently battling behind those eyes.

"Guy of Gisborne." Robin started, his voice hoarse, but still commanding. He kept it low adding malice to his words, "You are hereby charged with the murder of Marian of Locksley."

Robin didn't noticed the look of surprise on Gisborne's face, and could not have known what Marian's last words to Gisborne had been before she'd been killed – hadn't known that it was Marian's desire to wed him that had pushed Gisborne over the edge.

Although motionless, Gisborne's denial was written all over his face, "No. She never married you. She couldn't have."

"Yes, Gisborne." Robin all but spat the others name out, "With her last dying breath she married me. Even after you killed her... she was still mine."

Gisborne went to struggle as rage took over his common sense, but the cold steel of Robin's sword brought him quickly back to his senses. His eyes flickered on the metal, half an inch clear of his skin, "I would have had her." He sneered the words, and Robin stiffened.

"You murdered her! She was an innocent..."

"No!" Gisborne cut him off, and Robin watched as Gisborne seemed to gain his footing once more, "No. She played me... she played this game and she knew the stakes. You were the one who allowed her to run unchecked. Unprotected." His smile turned almost triumphant, "You got her killed."

The anger burning away inside of Robin was threatening to consume him, "I loved her!" his sword point, control by hands shaking with pent up emotion, dug against the soft skin of Gisborne's neck, "She was unarmed when you drove your sword through her! You killed her in cold blood."

Gisborne, weary enough of the sword point not to impale himself, but seemingly unconcerned, sneered again, "Is that what you are going to do now, Hood? Kill me in cold blood?"

"This isn't murder." Robin struggled to return his voice back to normal, dropping it a few octaves, "I'm not here for revenge." He looked Gisborne straight in the eye, "This is justice."

"You're my executioner?" An eyebrow raised. He looked almost smug, like the idea was ludicrous.

"You've been charged." Robin said, suddenly calm, suddenly back on the track he had started on when he'd come for Gisborne. He drew on the strength the clear decision gave him.

Robin pulled back slightly on the sword, and a bead of blood drew from where he'd nicked Gisborne's skin. He straighten, the anger gone, replaced by something in his eyes that Gisborne couldn't read, "You've been found guilty and your sentence is death. Do you have any last words?"

"You won't do it Hood." Gisborne stated firmly, but his eyes betrayed a hint of his fear, "You're not the murderer I am."

Robin almost smiled, his lips pressing tightly together, "You're wrong."

Robin pulled back, and without hesitation plunged the sword into Gisborne's shoulder with both hands. The other man screamed, in shock as well as pain and anger. Robin drove the sword deep, Gisborne's gloved hands reaching up, desperate to stop it's movement. They stood for a handful of heartbeats, Robin allowing Gisborne to grow accustomed to this new sensation.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Robin asked, in between Gisborne's gasps, his voice still eerily calm. He freed a hand, reaching down to finger the scar that ran across his side, "You nearly succeeded in killing me once, Gisborne. And you did kill Marian. Why did you think, even for a second, that I wouldn't do the same to you?"

Robin twisted the sword embedded in his enemies shoulder before Gisborne could retort, enticing another howl of rage from the other man. Gisborne struggled to stay on his feet as blood loss and pain threatened unconsciousness.

"You're right, of course." Robin said almost conversationally, as Gisborne continued to struggle. Robin had all of the leverage, lending his body weight to the sword, and nothing Gisborne could do could shift it, "She did play you. Oh Gisborne... if only she knew how much she hated it."

Distracted for an instant, Gisborne locked eyes with Robin, "You lie."

"Do you really think she ever had feelings for you?" Robin was genuinely curious, "That she ever once wanted to be with you?"

Gisborne shook his head in denial of Robin's words, "Yes...She stayed with me..."

"You held her hostage with her father... where do you think she came after he died?" Suddenly Robin laughed, "You actually believed she became a nun?" Of all of Allan's lies, that was the one Robin loved the most. He could just picture it, his Marian, feisty, stubborn, unable to sit still for more then a few moments, as a nun.

The thought of Marian suddenly sobered him. He stared down at Gisborne, pinned against the wall, blood oozing from his sword wound, his eyes glazed by pain and fear and suffering.

Robin swallowed. Marian wouldn't want this. He could picture her, so clearly, standing by his side, begging for mercy. For Gisborne. Even after everything he'd done, she would still claim he didn't deserve this.

"But neither did you, my beloved." Robin whispered softly, wrenching the sword from Gisborne's shoulder as his grief welled again. The other man screamed in agony, dropping to his knee's in front of Robin. Blood, free of it's dam, gushed over Gisborne's fingers, staining leather, pooling on the hard floor boards.

Robin, the tattered remains of a man who'd lost everything, shook his head, "Should I leave you, Gisborne? Leave you to be tried by King Richard? Leave you to rip apart other peoples families, the way you destroyed mine?" Robin held his sword in both hands, positioned above Gisborne's bent over neck,

"A clue? No."

Robin pulled back, then brought down his arms with all his might. His sword, curved, made of Saracen steel, cut through Gisborne's neck, severing his head cleanly. Robin only felt a hint of resistance.

With a sickening smack, Gisborne's head hit the floor, rolling towards Robin's feet as the body toppled after it with a dull thud. Robin stared at both head and body for a long, drawn out moment, almost as if he were waiting for something.

But the minutes ticked by and the crushing weight of his grief didn't lift. He didn't even feel relieved. His pain and his sadness stayed with him, choking him and suddenly he couldn't breathe. Tears threatened, and then fell, and Robin fell to his knee's next to the body of Guy of Gisborne, staring into the others lifeless eyes, trying to find in them the release he needed.

His sobs burned their way through his chest and he found no solace from them. An eternity passed, and Robin of Locksley knew no respite from his torment.

Marian was gone, and a new day dawned with that black weight forever on his heart.

_fin_


End file.
